Maybe the man they are married to is just very manipulative and cunning.. like how Charles Manson had multiple women followers. But I could envision a polygamous situation that isn't at all sinister as well.

Interesting that you should ask that. There have been polyandrous societies in the past but that was only because there was a severe shortage of females and in those cases, there is a higher probability of [male] homosexuality because the truth is (and please don't shot me for this) most women can barely handle one man's sex drive per day.

this facet never struck me as an influencing factor, but I think its the being forced bit that works both ways.. be it with preserving the past or with preventing change... pluralism which fosters growth I guess as opposed to authoritarianism or traditionalism etc which ensures 'reliability' steeped in the experience of the past.

Interesting that you should ask that. There have been polyandrous societies in the past but that was only because there was a severe shortage of females and in those cases, there is a higher probability of [male] homosexuality because the truth is (and please don't shot me for this) most women can barely handle one man's sex drive per day.

It's been my understanding that those have been rare and rather isolated cases.

Polygamy is a bad idea for society and the reproductive interests of the male population as a whole. Generally, the oldest/richest/most influential men get all the women and all the younger men are screwed over.

It's been my understanding that those have been rare and rather isolated cases.

Yes. Thank God.

Speaking of that, China is actually having a female shortage problem right now. Too many males there right now and the population can not be sustained with the low number of females they have. So the men are now kidnapping women from neighboring N. Korea to take as wives, which of course is upsetting Korea. Trouble.

Speaking of that, China is actually having a female shortage problem right now. Too many males there right now and the population can not be sustained with the low number of females they have. So the men are now kidnapping women from neighboring N. Korea to take as wives, which of course is upsetting Korea. Trouble.

That damn sex-selective abortion. Patriarchal ideology at its logical conclusion.

Just general observation throughout my life of what people say and do. It doesn't sound like women have a lack of interest in sex. When they complain about men, they seem to complain about the way men view sex, or the way men perform sex, or the way ment want sex. I rarely hear a woman say that she's actually not interested in the sex itself, rather they just seems to have an ideal about it that is unmet by the men in their lives.

I can't really say how true this is. I only know that it is what I have anecdotally observed.

Go to sleep, iguana.

_________________________________INTP. Type 1>6>5. sx/sp.Live and let live will just amount to might makes right

Polygamy is a bad idea for society and the reproductive interests of the male population as a whole. Generally, the oldest/richest/most influential men get all the women and all the younger men are screwed over.

I could argue that gay marriage is worse for our society too though, as the U.S. govt has always rewarded couples who produce future tax payers and homosexuals do not do this.

Speaking of that, China is actually having a female shortage problem right now. Too many males there right now and the population can not be sustained with the low number of females they have. So the men are now kidnapping women from neighboring N. Korea to take as wives, which of course is upsetting Korea. Trouble.

I think you could create any arbitrary social norm, even if it involves bashing rocks against your head, and you will get people saying they don't mind it and enjoy it.

Alright. Not addressing polygamy per se, but Slavoj Žižek provides some interesting insights into the larger picture involved:

"All democratic Leftists venerate Rosa Luxembourg's famous "Freedom is freedom for those who think differently." Perhaps, the time has come to shift the accent from "differently" to "think": "Freedom is freedom for those who think differently" - ONLY for those who REALLY THINK, even if differently, not for those who just blindly (unthinkingly) act out their opinions. What this means is that one should gather the courage to radically question today's predominant attitude of anti-authoritarian tolerance...Power appears (is experienced) "as such" at the very point where it is no longer covered by "authority.".... First, "authority" is not simply a direct property of the master-figure, but an effect of the social relationship between the master and his subjects: even if the master remains the same, it may happen, because of the change in the socio-symbolic field, that his position is no longer perceived as legitimate authority, but as mere illegitimate power (is such a shift not the most elementary gesture of feminism: male authority is all of a sudden unmasked as mere power?). The lesson of all revolutions from 1789 to 1989 is that such a disintegration of authority, its transformation into arbitrary power, always precedes the revolutionary outbreak. Where Williams is right is in his emphasis on how the very permissiveness of the power-figure, its restraining from exercising authority by directing, controlling, his subject, makes it that authority appears as illegitimate power. Therein resides the vicious cycle of today's academia: the more professors renounce "authoritarian" active teaching, imposing knowledge and values, the more they are experienced as figures of power. And, as every parent knows, the same goes for parental education: a father who exerts true transferential authority will never be experienced as "oppressive" — it is, on the contrary, a father who tries to be permissive, who does not want to impose on his children his views and values, but allows them to discover their own way, that is denounced as exerting power, as being "oppressive"…

The paradox to be fully endorsed is here that the only way to effectively abolish power relations leads through freely accepted relations of authority: the model of free collective is not a group of libertines indulging in their pleasures, but the extremely disciplined revolutionary collective....."
-- "Heiner Mueller Out of Joint"

Which overall seems to confirm what Hmm stated what happened, the women freely consented to this arrangement.